The Advantages of Being an Only Child
by Canadino
Summary: Jack and Simon get ready for a date in an alternate universe where they have somewhat responsible older brothers and slightly strange younger brothers. OC Brothers, AU, Jack/Simon


**Disclaimer: The only thing I own is the story idea and only some of the witty remarks. I own so little; so please don't steal.**

Background music: -

[=]

The Advantages of Being an Only Child

When Jack pulls the shower curtain aside, still dripping and nude and reaching for his towel, he comes face to face with his older brother Nicolas, who is standing right in front of the shower with a _not amused_ expression on his face. Jack lets out a manly yelp and cringes to cover himself up although his brother has seen him naked many times when they were younger. Nicolas rolls his eyes and hands him his towel.

"You never told me you were going out with Simon tonight," he says, as Jack tucks the towel around his waist and gives his brother a nasty glare. He steps aside and adjusts his tortoiseshell glasses as Jack walks out of the shower and begins to dry himself off. "I told mom I was going to go grab a few drinks with my friends but she said I couldn't go with the two-child-dinner policy.[1] You know as well as I do that Jake doesn't have friends who want to see him at night, so I concluded it was you."

"Go back to college," Jack grumbles, throwing a towel over his head to rub his hair dry. Nicolas _might_ have gone farther away for college – he is certainly smart enough – but his idiot brother goes ahead and enrolls in a local university and comes home more times than Jack likes. He thought Nicolas going to uni would mean more privacy and more respect as the oldest son in the house, but those hopes are dashed as Nicolas comes home most days.

Nicolas groans. "You know I'd leave that place if mom wouldn't go ballistic on me for dropping out one year before graduation. But don't change the subject. Where're you going tonight?"

"None of your business."

"Alright. I'll watch you change then. You dress for the occasion." His brother continues standing in the bathroom, loitering, as Jack pulls on his boxers and heads for the door, barely dressed. He doesn't care who sees him because he's going to escape the wrath of Janette in half an hour and his mother has always had a twisted, Spartan way of raising her sons anyway. Nicolas follows him like an incessant shadow. "You know, you should bring Simon over more often."

"Right," Jack scoffs, throwing his towel over his shoulders, red hair still dripping as he makes his way down the hallway to his room. "And you'll try to seduce him and hang over him again. I don't think so."

"I nearly had him that one time," Nicolas says, sounding truly disappointed, and Jack glances over his shoulder to see his brother snap his fingers. "You were practically out of the picture and neglecting him and I was only going to show him some of our Merridew hospitality in my room, no big deal…"

"You're going to get your old, stubbled face away from him," Jack dictates, stopping to point an accusing finger in Nicolas's face, making his brother go cross-eyed for a moment. "Go bang your college chicks or whatever. Stay out of my business."

"Hey, whoa there," Nicolas laughs, holding his hands up in mock surrender. "Don't get so defensive, little brother. Obviously if someone is mentally deranged enough to consider a relationship with someone like _you_, he or she is not worthy to enjoy _my_ company. Cute or not." He smirks at Jack's scowl. "I'm flattered you consider me so manly as to be a threat to you, but really…"

"Shut up. Seriously. Shut up." Jack decides to abandon Nicolas in the hallway and storms off to his room but his brother follows him still. He's pulling out clothes from his closet and throwing them out haphazardly as Nicolas gingerly enters his room – a real war zone – and sits on the bed, testing it first for sharp objects.

"See, my room, you wouldn't lose Simon in it."

"I thought I told you to shut up. Get out of my room."

"Okay, I'll talk about something you can relate to. Simon! He's a cutie, isn't he? I was really surprised when I came home over winter break and suddenly you got yourself a little boyfriend? Stop the presses; Jack Merridew having a significant other? It's a little pathetic, since _I_ started dating around Jake's age. Whatever. So of course I had to see what kind of boy you would commit yourself to. But he is such a precious thing!" Nicolas's voice reaches the area that most individuals reserve for talking about babies or small animals. "I see how you like him. He'd be easy to push down and have your way with."

"Stop being a pervert, asshole." Jack pulls on a pair of jeans as Nicolas looks around the room, amused. His brother rarely comes into his room at all.

"Do you have condoms?" Nicolas asks, rummaging through his belongings and Jack lunges at him. "You've got to be protected. If not for your sake, for his. Imagine if he catches something from you!" Nicolas makes a sad imitation of Simon's face, and Jack is glad; if Simon looked remotely like this pathetic contortion of a face, he would never have agreed to date the boy. "Hold on, I think I have a couple spares in my wallet." Nicolas fishes through his pockets as Jack pulls on a shirt. "Here. They're pretty good quality. I'm not sure if you'll fit, though…"

"Don't be annoying," Jack snaps, although he takes the condoms anyway. This amuses his brother to no end. "Don't even talk about it. This is just in case."

"Just in case!" Nicolas howls. "Oh, my respectable little brother Jack Merridew, going around pretending to be an innocent choir boy popping cherries! What has society come to?"

"Get out of here!" Jack yells, displacing his brother from his bed and shoving the gangly mess of limbs and early twenties sophistication away from his space. "I don't need your commentary."

"You look like you're going to a rave," Nicolas deducts, refusing to budge from the doorway as Jack goes around collecting his keys and phone. "Decent jeans, fitting shirt…where exactly are you taking him?"

"There's a tunnel downtown," Jack says sarcastically. "There's going to be a DJ, alcohol, and a bunch of clubbers. We're going to get royally smashed and I'm going to take Simon's virginity in a bunch of bushes a distance away from the place. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"How did you slip past Janette's clutches?" Nicolas asks, looking over his should habitually to see if his mother overheard him calling her by her first name, although they are on the second floor of the house and she is in the kitchen cooking dinner. "She's like a she-monster mother. I'm surprised she didn't dress you herself in a tuxedo to take him out for a decent dinner or something."

Jack flicks him off and briskly walks past him out of his room. At the stairs, Jake, their fourteen-year-old little brother, bounds up the stairs, clutching his baseball bat and sports bag over his shoulder and smelling atrocious. Jack hopes against all odds that odors do not settle on skin because he didn't just take a shower for nothing. "Hey guys!" Jake shouts unnecessarily. He gives Jack a one-over. "Where are you going?"

"Date," Nicolas answers for him, crossing his arms like a critic. "With _Simon_."

"Eww," Jake says, wrinkling his nose. It isn't that Jake is homophobic, because their mother taught them better than that, but he is still trapped in the stage where he thinks any sort of intimate relationship between two people is gross. "Are you two going to be…_kissing_?" He makes a face while saying it.

"Yes," Jack grounds out, before Nicolas can speak for him again. "And guess what else I'm going to be doing, Jake? I'm going to touch him. In different places. Do you like the mental images I'm putting in your head?"

Jake stares at him before Jack sees his mind enter straight into the gutter. "_Eww!_" he squeals, looking positively scandalized. "Gross, Jack! Gross!" He shakes his head as if to physically remove the thoughts now firmly implanted right at the front of his mind. "Jack, eww! That's so nasty! He's only…what…one year older than me, it's like making out with _me_!"

The three brothers stand in silence for a moment before making a face in unison. "_That_ is disgusting," Nicolas agrees, and Jack is too repulsed to say otherwise. Jake decides to gloss over that unpleasant exchange and tosses his head about, his never-combed hair flying about like struggling animals. The boy always looks like he's just rolled around in the dirt.

"I'm not going to even think about it anymore," Jake announces. "You can do whatever you want to do. I've got a busy day ahead of me tomorrow. I need my sleep." He heads off to his room, strutting in weak imitation of his brothers. For all his talk, Jack knows Jake secretly admires them even with all their faults. That hasn't changed much at all.

"So," Nicolas says, slapping Jack between the shoulders. "Take it easy and don't do anything I wouldn't do." He lets the words settle before adding, "Which isn't much, granted it's Simon, after all." He whoops and quickly bounds away from Jack's grip before he can be hurled over the railing and into the foyer below.

[=]

"What are you doing sitting in front of the door?"

Simon gulps. "Waiting for the mail?"

Alexander gives him a cold look. "As lies go, that was your worst. Please don't tell me you're going out with _that boy_ again."

Simon purses his lips together and gives his brother the best puppy-dog eyes he can muster. They haven't really worked on Alex since he graduated college, but he can try. His brother doesn't change his expression. "I don't know why you're so harsh on Jack anyway!" Simon says, abandoning his 'pity-me-I'm-your-cute-younger-brother' tactic. "He isn't a bad person."

"You are fifteen."

"So? A lot of people my age are in relationships."

"He is going to uni soon."

"That's irrelevant."

"I beg to differ. Mom has been mollycoddling you and Chris since I've left the house – don't try to say she hasn't, I know she has. Doting around and being such a…a…_mother_. She hasn't raised you to be careful, and you should be. He's going to take advantage of you." Simon frowns. Just because Alexander is now part of the working society (with a tentative IT job, really!) doesn't mean he can boss his family around as he pleases. "I know those sort of boys. They'll lead you around until you get hurt."

"You don't know me too well, then," Simon retorts, sticking his nose up at him, sitting cross-eagled and cross-armed in the space in front of the door. "Because if he takes advantage of me, it'll be because I _want_ him to."

"You don't even know what you're talking about," Alex scolds. "I told mom she had to be careful when you started entering your rebellious teenager stage. But no. She called me up and said, 'Oh, Alex, Simon has a boyfriend now, isn't that just the most adorable thing ever?' I thought she was going to have pictures when I came over. She does not understand how dangerous this is. I have seen that boy and how he looks at you."

"How does he look at me?" Simon asks excitedly.

"Badly! You don't understand."

Their mother, Sadie, calls to interrupt them. "Alex, honey?" her gentle voice floats into the hallway. "Would you like me to leave the peppers out of your pasta?"

"Not _now_, mother!"

"Alex…?"

Alex lets out a loud, irritated sigh and rubs his temples. "Yes, please," he replies in a calm voice. It seems none of his brothers can truly snap at their mother. It's as if Sadie has a pacifistic aura wafting from her body. Alex tries not to look disgruntled at being interrupted as Sadie coos a matronly _thank you_. He takes a breath to collect his thoughts. "Simon. Really. He's not good for you."

"You're stifling me with your brother complex," Simon says.

"Oh my g…don't start on that." Alex slumps and it isn't until a couple moments later that he realizes that Chris is behind him. "Sorry, Chris. Didn't see you there." Their baby brother, inexperienced and naïve at thirteen, shuffles past him, his hair dangling over his eyes in the same way Simon's bangs drape over his eyes. But Simon wears his hair because it's cute; Chris hides behind his. "Look. Chris doesn't like bad people."

Chris, who has started up the stairs, turns in surprise, looking first at Alex, then at Simon. He suddenly acts like a rabbit caught in a trap. If Simon is introverted, Chris is a hermit. He physically dislikes attention. "Chris knows to be careful. You don't see him carting around people like Jack Merridew."

Simon looks likes he's swallowed something sour and turns to Chris. A silent exchange occurs, with unspoken threats and words flying between them as Chris looks more frightened by the second. "That's not true," Simon blurts out before he can help it. "Chris likes Jack too." Alex turns to Chris in bewilderment, missing the matching surprised look on Simon's face at his own daring. But he is too far gone to retract. "Don't think I haven't noticed," Simon continues, feeling a little bad for making Chris into the scapegoat, but he's wanted to say this for a while too. "Whenever I meet with him, you're always looking at him. But he's not interested in you, okay? So don't bother."

"That's not true, is it? No. Chris, really?"

Chris lets out a strangled shriek before running away to his room. Alex stares after him in shock, before channeling his attention back to Simon. "You're a bad influence," he concludes. "Look at you. Dressed like you're easy."

"Tight clothes don't mean I'm easy!" Simon insists. "Just because the only thing you feel up is that guitar of yours…!"

"Oh no, you did not just go there…"

A car beeps somewhere outside and Simon shoots up. "Well, my ride's here," he says quickly, practically yanking the doorknob out of his spot. "Don't hold your breath, Alex!" Simon sticks out his tongue and dances out into the night, slamming the door behind him.

[=]

[1] Janette has a two-child-dinner policy because she believes if all her sons go out at the same time then order will be disrupted. Therefore she only lets one out on any given night. Whoever asks first gets privileged. Yes, she is _that_ type of mother.

Note: ARG this is SO OOC and AU that it doesn't even really belong here. Urg. But I really wanted to explore siblings, since the fandom seems to believe that everyone in LOTF is an only child except the twins. And Ke$ha needs to just get out of my head. If you are interested in brief descriptions of Nicolas, Jake, Alexander, and Chris with tentative character designs, check out my deviantart. I sort of want to explore the siblings more, but without Jack/Simon…like maybe a Jake/Chris? Originals will be posted on my Livejournal. Thanks for putting up with this crazy piece and my rambling. You are a brave person.


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